In this chapter the researcher simplifies the problems that have been faced by the foreign language students. The problem is cognitive factors.
After that, the researcher discusses the spreading activation network model and also mentions the previous studies related with the writing task and the
problems for the foreign language students.
2.1 Previous study
Syaifullah 2009 makes a research how to improve the students’ ability in writing recount text by using picture series. In this research, he revealed
that there were some problems found in the field when giving writing materials to the students, especially the recount text. The first problem was
that the students’ writing was not comprehensible, because the content of the composition was not relevant to the topic, the ideas were not clearly stated,
the ideas and sentences were not well organized. The second problem was that there were many errors in vocabulary, grammar, and spelling.
Another problem was the students had low motivation and were not interested in doing the task since the writing activities were not interesting. Usually, the
students were asked to write sentences and paragraphs without being given some clue so that it was difficult for them to express their ideas on a piece of
paper.
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This research was focus on the students of class VIIIC SMPN 1 Bati- Bati Kabupaten Tanah Laut in the first semester of 20082009. The number of
the students in this class was 36 students. The students were taken as the subject of the study since they have poor ability in writing recount text. This
research focus on the positive effect using picture series as the media to improve the students’ competence to understand the generic structures of
recount text as well as its language features. There were two cycles in his research. Each cycle consisted of
planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. Both cycles focused on the oral cycle of recount learning process. Each oral cycle needed 3 meetings.
One meeting was for building knowledge of the field BKOF, and modeling of text MOT. One more meeting was for joint construction of text JCOT,
and another one was for individual construction of text ICOT. So, the two cycles of the action research need 5 meetings.
After conducting the research, he concluded that the use of picture series can improve the students’ writing ability in recount text. The students’
mean score is 71.52. It fulfilled the criteria of success which is determined 7.00 or more. In terms of students motivation and activeness, during the
teaching and learning process using picture series the students were actively involved and more motivated to write.
Chairun Nisak’s 2007 research discussed how to improve students’ writing skill through report text at SMA MUHAMMADIYAH 5 Juwiring”.
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Chairun’s research is to know whether or not the students have adequate writing skill in learning English, to know the students participation during English
teaching learning process using text report to improve students writing skill, and to describe the achievement of the students writing skill in their test result. In this
research, text report is used by Chairun to improve students writing skill in learning English. This research was carried out at Sma Muhammadiyah 5
Juwiring especially in cla ss B that consist of 35 Students. To collect the requierd data, the writer did observation, gave test, and used interview. There were two
cycles in this action research. In which each cycle used pretest and posttest. The result of pretest and posttest were use to know the score of the writing skill. The
mean score of pretest was 57.71, which belongs to low score. While, the mean score of the students writing skill of the teacher did the action was 80.28 Based
on the research findings, it can be concluded that the result of the students’ achievement showed that descriptive paragraph using text report in teaching
writing could improve the students’ achievement better. The students score was getting better in each cycle. It indicated that the teaching learning process was
successful. Therefore, it is better for the students to study English carefully through practice and experience, and to be active and creative in learning
English. While the English teacher should teach the students with text report, process considerable knowledge to manage an interesting classroom, and prepare
the lessons they are going to teach as well as possible.
These two previous studies show that there are a lot of researches about
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how to improve the writing skill of the students’ through various ways. And as we can see that writing is always and will be a big problem for the foreign
students’. This study used the spreading activation network model as an option to encourage them to writing was not hard as they thought before, by
connecting the nodes form one word to another words that related with their ideas.
2.2 Writing and the problems in writing for the foreign language students
